2
THE
CHEM AW A
AM ERICAN
and bewildering rhythm, he will have done in music what Thorpe, the
Olympic champion, did in athletics.” Miss Curtis and Mr. O’Hara
represent the effort to prepetuate Indian art in the life of the Indian to
day, not only for his sake, but for our own. This side of Indian lifeis.
entirely unrevealed to most white men; and there is urgent need from
the standpoint of the white man himself of a proper appreciation of
native art. Such appreciation may mean much towards helping the
development of an original American art for our whole people.
No white visitor to Walpi was quite as interesting as an Indian visi
tor, a Navajo who was the owner and chauffeur of the motor in which
Mr. Hubbell had driven to Walpi. He was an excellent example of
the Indian who ought to be given the chance to go to a non-reservation
school a class not perhaps as yet relatively very large, but which will
grow steadily larger. He had gone to such a school; and at the close
of his course had entered the machine shops of the Santa Fe and North
eastern Railway I think that was the name of the road—staving there
four years, joining the local union, going out with the other men when
they struck, and having in all ways precisely the experience of the av
erage skilled mechanic. Then he returned to the reservation, where he
is now a prosperous merchant, running two stores; and he purchased
his automobile as a matter of convenience and of economy in time, so
as to get quickly from one store to the other, as they are far apart. He
is not a Christian, nor his wife; but his children have been baptized in
the Catholic Church. Of course such a prosperous career is exception
al for an Indian, as it would be exceptional for a white man; but there
were Hopi Indians whom we met at the dance, both storekeepers and
farmers, whose success had been almost as great. Among both the
Navajos and Hopis the progress has been marked during the last thirty
or forty years, and is more rapid now than ever before, and careers
such as those just mentioned will in their essence be repeated again and
again by members of both tribes in the near future. The Hopis are so
far advanced that most of them can now fully profit by non-reservation
schools, For large sections of the Navajos the advance must be slower.
For these the agency school is the best school, and there industrial
training should primarily be such as will fit them for work in their own
homes, and for making these homes cleaner and better.
Of course the advance in any given case is apt to be both fitful and
one-sided the marvel is that it is not more so. Moreover, the advance
is sometimes taking place when there seems dishearteningly little evi
dence of it. I have never respected any men or women more than some
of the missionaries and their wives there were examples on the Navajo
reservation who bravely and uncomplainingly labor for righteousness,
although knowing that the visible fruits of their labor will probably be